YANGON, (Reuters) – Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi was charged yesterday with breaking the terms of her house arrest and faces up to five years in jail after an American intruder sneaked into her lakeside home, her party said.
Opposition activists denounced her trial, set to begin on Monday, as a ploy by the junta in the former Burma to keep Suu Kyi, 63, sidelined ahead of elections in 2010. The charges stem from a bizarre incident involving U.S. citizen John William Yettaw, who, according to Myanmar’s state media, claimed to have swum across Inya Lake in Yangon and spent two days in Suu Kyi’s compound earlier this month. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she was deeply troubled by the “baseless” new charges against the Nobel Peace laureate and would raise the issue with Myanmar’s ally China and the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN).
